


Hileni and Gwarin

by bendy_quill



Series: Moon and Stars [5]
Category: Blades of Light and Shadow (Visual Novel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:48:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23975530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendy_quill/pseuds/bendy_quill
Summary: She was a strange child with even stranger parents and she knew this back then.
Series: Moon and Stars [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722727
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Hileni and Gwarin

Her childhood has always been a series of strange events. She was a strange child with even stranger parents and she knew this back then.

Riverbend was a quiet place with little to offer the world around it. It was no booming city center, no port town, and no mystical temples stood close enough to draw in adventurers (save for the one, apparently). By all accounts, Riverbend was an ordinary town that housed a most unordinary family. The market never lacked for goods and the townspeople hustled through daily chores every day. Familiar faces caught up where there were empty spaces in the streets and, in those very spaces, was where the gossip would spread.

Three elves—a mother, father, and their little daughter.

They knew the town and the town knew them. Wouldn’t cause them any trouble so long as the law found no trouble, but the humes knew better. Both the parents drew eyes wherever they went.

The father was Gwarin, a healer and surgeon of sorts. People felt more at ease with him because he spoke at least. His demeanor lacked in warmth like the wife but healing was a calling to him and everyone trusted him for that reason alone. The sick never stayed sick long and his concoctions all tasted bitter.

Hileni was the mother and no one knew what that woman did for a living. Every so often, she’d wander around the town looking for nothing in particular it seemed. People did their best to avoid her. She would walk the town in circles for hours on end and she was known to mutter to herself. She was just painfully odd.

And then there was the baby. Ashala the child was a blank canvas then, grasping at everything with awkward fingers and always marching barefoot through the thick trees surrounding the small cottage her parents made into a home. Even then, she seldom spoke. Her little feet always had cuts and she remembered dirt stains constantly marking the edges of every article of clothing she owned. The farmwives in town used to pull their children physically away from her when she came. The doctor and his odd wife’s child—they did much but they held little favor amongst the town.

The humes all lived down the path next to the Brightwood and her parents preferred it that way. Being away meant being surrounded by the quiet—all the trees, the flowing rivers, the wind rippling through pristine sheets hanging on clothing lines. It was the perfect breeding ground for the sort of work her parents would put upon her as soon as she mastered walking and talking. And it turned out they had much to teach her.

Her father would take her combing through mushroom patches and lake beds searching for herbs—if she was a good girl that didn’t stray as she was prone to, he would let her help him make the medicines he sold in town. Gwarin was a quiet man but his voice would cut through silence like a crack of thunder and it lingered for long moments.

“Like this, bloom,” he would say and he would deftly take a pinch of every herb laid before them. His hands were somewhat slender and his fingers a little too long. He’d take the pestle to the mortar and crush every ingredient until it was fine dust. “Never too hard. Pastes are for cuts and deep wounds. Powders are for tonics.”

He’d look at her and she remembered his vacant face. His face always seemed strangely empty, as if he had never learned how to show happiness, sadness, and everything in between.

She’d take the pestle in one hand and the mortar in the other, closely examining both. They’d make more powders and tonics until her the dryness cracked her hands. Her father would nod curtly.

“We’ll teach you, bloom,” he’d say. “We’ll teach you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She’d dread the days she had to spend time with her mother.

Hileni Venralei was a woman that seemed too stern and aloof for the trappings of motherhood. Staring at her mother’s passive face was a constant throughout her childhood. Every day the lessons grew harder and the consequences of her failures grew more severe. Wrong answers when she was younger were met with heavy sighs and alternative explanations. When Ashala came into her magic, wrong answers meant that she would learn from the terrible pain.

Her mother was the one with the markings. They were stark white and shined when it was dark around her. She remembered trading blow after blow, getting back up only to be slammed back down again. Hileni was vicious and mean when she taught her daughter magic.

“Failure can’t be tolerated, bloom,” her mother would say. Ashala would struggled back to her feet and her mother would simply stare. Most days she’d hit her with more magic until it was physically impossible for her to move. Some days, Hileni would be a mother for one moment and leave her without another word. Those days, Ashala slept outside, never once moving from her spot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There were days when Hileni was more like a mother. It was a dish she called lekmede, which was smoked fish, speckled rice soaked in what little butter they had in the house, all flanked with sour berries and steamed vegetables. Hileni made her help every single time.

“Bloom, stir the rice so it doesn’t stick.”

“Crush the herbs, bloom.”

“Bloom, turn the fish—the yeast, the yeast…”

Whenever Ashala heard the word “yeast,” she would almost forget she hated being near her mother sometimes.

Hileni possessed many quirks but her bread making skills had to have been legendary in Ashala’s young mind. Buttery flakes paired with the sweetest jams or perfectly risen rolls drizzled with a light frosting—Hileni could work two forms of magic it seemed.

“Come here.”

Ashala would scamper over, dragging a stool behind her to stand on. Hileni always started with the dough because her hands were much stronger. She’d shape it into a mound and work a hole into it. When she was done, she’d place an egg in Ashala’s hands.

“For every life, there is Light. We take from it and it gives to us for a price,” her mother would always say. Ashala tapped the egg three times on the counter and carefully pried the shells back so the yolk and egg white fell directly in the center of the mound. “When we pull from the world, we truly pull at the Light that comes from within. It moves when we move, it shapes as we bid it.”

Hileni’s hands were like her father’s—a bit large with too slender fingers yet…

Her mother would cover her hands and help her shape the dough. Press it, mold it, mix it all together and she’d feel every cut—

Every odd bend—

Every strangely shaped bone within her mother’s hands.

“Power rests within everything, bloom.” Her mother’s voice was always haunting, crawling into the chasm between her ears and lingered the way a spider lingers in a corner if left unattended. Her brow would sweat and her heart would quiver. Hileni would grab her hands then and stop their molding of the dough. “You will learn. I swear to you, you will learn.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The constellations were when she realized they were preparing her for something.

Gwarin and Hileni spent more time teaching her practically, the same way a priest would teach an acolyte or a teacher would a pupil. Her failures netted her the same result—heavy sighs and an agitated father repeating himself, or magically charged cuts across her skin from a mother that only pushed her even harder with every passing year. Rare was the day she didn’t find herself isolated in the forest when her lessons were done. They’d leave her be, disappointment marring their features and shared expressions revealing all she needed to know—

Progress was moving far too slowly.

“She won’t be ready in time,” her mother said. Every night it was the same conversation—the same hushed whispers and the same ruthless assessment. “Vadiir will not go smoothly if she—”

“Hush.” Her father held hope it seemed, although he’d never state it outright. “Keep pushing. Ancient blood flows through those veins…alights in those eyes. Her time will come. Just be patient.”

Quiet. Without seeing she knew her mother’s face would shift full of the same apprehension and doubt from the poor progress made earlier during the lessons.

“As you wish.”

Months passed and her progress improved albeit by small margins. Her magic didn’t waver anymore against her mother. Some parts rage and hurt pushed her through those moments, maybe even the thought that she could inflict a spell upon her mother helped. Her skills with medicines, poisons, and potions became more potent. Some of her father’s patients would heal from her work and he trusted her enough to make batches without supervision. History, literature, flitting between the little they knew of the old tongue and the many languages that made up the greater body of Morella—

Every day was a new day and she dreaded them as much as she valued them.

“Look there, bloom.” They never had a day of respite. Rest came only when it was time to move on to the next day or when her little body was too weak to stand. That night was different.

Ashala followed her mother’s finger tracing patterns in the sky.

“Myyori. A wandering maiden searching for the eternal fruit,” her father explained. “She walks to atone for the crime she committed—treason in exchange for a wish. A great evil granted it to her and now she remains forever branded in the sky. ”

“What was her wish?” Ashala asked.

Her father said nothing at first. “Your books tell four versions of the story.”

Her mother laid a gentle hand on her head and directed her towards another pattern.

“Luminiese and Sabien, the twin trees. Brothers bonded through shared roots and shattered when one absorbed the corruption of a great evil,” her mother said. Ashala followed the pattern of the trunks, the strong roots, and the canopies of both brothers. “One gave his life to protect the other. Your books tell three versions of this story.”

It was the same with every pattern they pointed out and every story they told—there it was and here are the amount of times the story was always different. It made little sense to her. A story should be known at its roots. Why would it change?

“A story should be known, shouldn’t it?” she asked, face pinching. “Why tell so many different ones? I don’t get it.”

“Each is an old tale, bloom. Most of them existed before any of us were born,” her father answered. His face changed then, something somber flashing in his eyes as he looked at his child. “These are the relics of our people…all that remains of an empire that spanned the whole of Morella.”

She knew. They were the remnants of the Old Kingdom—thousands of years of magic and power held in the hands of elvenkind. There were scholars and priests, warriors and merchants, and it was a sight to behold at the height of its prime. The humes don’t like speaking on it. “Flat-eared vultures” is what they’d say about the elves, that the hand fate dealt them was deserved. The weak prospered and the survivors reaped the rewards of what was left after the war ended. The world continued along its path and the elves barricaded themselves inside a mountain.

“It’s important that you know these stories,” her mother said. Her fingers dug into Ashala’s hair then. She’d part the hair in pieces and weave the white curls in tight braids that hugged her scalp. “We owe you this and we will provide it. It’s your birthright.”

Ashala sat listening to the other stories quietly, her little mind too young to comprehend the weight of her parents words. Her mother’s cuts still healed on her arms and her father’s disappointed face hangs over her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hileni is the one she understood the least.

It was supposed to be a normal day of hard work and unforgiving lessons. She did not know the hardest one she’d learn had yet to come.

On the day she would learn the hardest lesson yet, her father spent the entire morning asking her questions. Musings on the stars and moon, potion ingredients and the properties of each, wars, battle tactics, poetry, music—his brow was dotted with sweat and his eyes focused on anything but her.

Then her mother poked her head around the threshold.

And he looked at her.

She stared right back at him, her expression grim but her eyes showed resolve.

“Come,” he father urged, tugging her by the hand.

The two of them led her outside well beyond the house and into the forest. Every step forward submerged her deep into darkness. Within the depths, sounds called out to her. Whispers at first but the words were unclear. Her footsteps grew more hesitant but her father’s grip only tightened. When they finally stopped, she knew everything was going to change.

Her father led her to the center and what she saw terrified her to the core. Black markings covered the ground in a circular pattern and within the circle were other strange designs she didn’t recognize. A language she could recognize but not speak filled the spaces in between.

“You must shed your unnatural trappings,” he father said. He turned away while she undressed. He walked a distance away though his head bowed and his breath hitched when her mother’s power seeped into the oppressive air around them.

“Lie down,” she said, taking a shaky breath of her own.

The grass was wet and sticky on her skin. Panic overwhelmed her but she remembered the comfort and truth of the Light. Her eyes closed and her power pulled from the trees, the air, and the ground. Each point of power funneled through her with ease. Her mother caressed her face and shared a bit of the magic flowing in her. It was strange to experience this sort of warmth from her mother.

“Fear is good, bloom. Fear means you understand what comes next will change you forever.” Her heart sped and breathing became harder. Even still, her mother’s magic held her. “The marks on me were bestowed in this way. These are your birthright, your legacy, and the legacy of our people.”

“Mamae!” she cried, jerking hard. It felt like vines wrapping around her wrists and ankles, pinning her to the ground in a painful grip. Ashala’s eyes opened and the circle was glowing. In the distance, her father stood with both hands clasped over his mouth and tears threatening to fall. When she met her mother’s gaze again, she knew this would be the most painful experience she would ever know.

“You are brave and powerful. You are the vanguard of our history and a seeker of all. We have endured so you would one day be ready to face your trial.”

Ashala screamed then. Her eyes followed the path down and it couldn’t be possible—

But it was. It was a branch weaving around her leg, its jagged pieces scraping all along her skin. For a moment she thought it would carve her flesh. Instead, it burrowed deep under the skin and spread through her body.

And she screamed.

“Ours is a history marred with death and betrayal. Ours is a burden of pain and understanding we must wear.”

Burning. Her flesh was burning from the inside out, the branch weaving through her and ripping at skin, muscle, and bone. Searing, scorching, inferno burning inside her body and she begged her mother to stop. She begged her father to stop her mother. She begged the moon and stars to strike them both dead so she might be spared.

Her mother’s hands only held tighter.

“We call it the vadiir. It is you and me, your grandparents and the parents that raised them. It is the greatest gift we can give to you. You will understand one day, bloom. You will.”

The screams faded as her voice grew bloody and hoarse. Soon there was nothing but pain and burning.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She couldn’t move for seven days and seven nights. Her flesh smelled of burned and rotting meat.

She wished her parents were dead.

She wished her life was different.

She wanted to know what they did to her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She saw the white marks two months after they were branded onto her skin. A life bound to bed meant she faced her parents even when she didn’t want to see them. The lessons never stopped and their patience never wore down even when she refused to cooperate some days. They must have decided that she could hate them so long as she learned.

When the bandages came off, she didn’t know who it was staring back at her in the mirror. Careful patterns, loops and swirls, dots forming pictures she recognized the moment she saw them—

Myyori.

And Luminiese and Sabien.

Every story they told her of the stars she now wore on her body.

She stared at this face she couldn’t recognize, shaking and crying while her parents watched on from the threshold.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Her parents were complicated people, perhaps she even hated them. Hileni and Gwarin were strange people.

Ashala looks down at the open journal in her hands, years of scrawl covering the pages top to bottom. All the years of her tutelage and their strangeness still haunts her to this day. She closes the journal and tucks it into her pack.

Dawn is just beyond the horizon.


End file.
